Design of the 1992 Cadillac Seville and Eldorado, Part 5

Design of the 1992 Cadillac Seville and Eldorado

by Dick Ruzzin and Dennis Little

Edited by Gary Smith

 

Part Five—Eldorado Creation

 

Dick Ruzzin

For over 1-1/2 years, Cadillac Studio had developed a series of Eldorado clay model design proposals in competition with Pininfarina’s efforts.

Chuck wanted us to develop a car without a body side molding. The Pininfarina car had one and every time that there was a Clinic, because of that molding, it would win. We eventually discovered the problem.

Our designs consistently lost in clinics against the Pininfarina car (I think there were three clinics).

It was during this time that a meeting took place that included Cadillac Division, Design management, and Pininfarina. Because of the success in clinics of the Pininfarina design, it was decided that we would take the design from the PininFarina fiberglass model, and adapt the design to our longer clay model. It became a matter of execution—interpreting their design to our clay model that had different proportions. We worked on that clay model for about three weeks. Vertical tail lights came from the Pininfarina design along with a slightly depressed decklid. The vertical tail lights weren’t an issue because we had vertical tail lights on every proposal that we had created.

 

Clinic Upset

There was a color clinic scheduled to take place in Chicago, and I had to pick a color for the PininFarina fiberglass model that was going to be shown along with the Buick Riviera and Oldsmobile Trofeo fiberglass models. I chose a dark metallic blue for the Pininfarina Eldorado.

The people running the clinic decided on their own to test the Pininfarina Eldorado design, not by itself just for color, but along with the Riviera and Trofeo designs one more time. That was not a scheduled part of the clinic. They wanted to show the three cars together because they felt that something was wrong.

That was the first time that the PininFarina car had been shown with other cars. It failed miserably. As a Cadillac, it was a great disappointment to all the attendees.

 

Disaster

Along with the Eldorado, Cadillac Studio was also in the early stages of developing the next DeVille, and our clay model was coming along quite well. We were preparing for a major show for the next day in the auditorium. I was putting dimension signs on 20-foot boards.

I was by myself and suddenly I heard someone calling my name. I said, “Over here,” and Chuck Jordan appeared. The look on his face reflected something terrible, and I thought it might be something personal. He called me by my first name, which was very unusual. He never did that. He always called all of us by our last names.

He was in a rush and he came over and said to me, “Dick, a terrible thing has happened. The Pininfarina car bombed in Chicago.” The terrible thing was that now we were without an Eldorado design, already one month late after the release date. Cadillac’s plan with Pininfarina, and all of our plans at design, had all failed. We had nothing.

I remember clearly that I was very relieved that he was not informing me of some tragic event that had happened. Instead, it was about the Eldorado design program. I was glad that it had failed, and it must have shown on my face. I said, “Great!”

Chuck said something that really surprised me. “You mean, after doing all those cars (17 designs), that you want to do another one?”

I said, “Chuck, absolutely. Because it’s going to be a winner.” I had great confidence in that statement. I said, “We’ve done everything that we thought we wanted and what everyone else wanted, and we couldn’t find a good design. Now we’re going to do a design that we really like and want to do. Chuck responded, “OK. Great.” And he walked out.

 

Marathon Mock-up Session

Dennis developed a plan. It was Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving. Two fiberglass models of design proposals that weren’t considered strong enough were moved to into an empty room on the first floor.

I had scheduled vacation on the day after Thanksgiving. (At that time we still worked on the Friday after Thanksgiving.) I would be back Monday morning.

I told Dennis that I’d cancel my vacation, but Dennis said, “No, you go. You will not have seen anything that we’re going to do when you get back on Monday. So you can review what we’ve come up with, and then we’ll put the final car together.” I thought that made a lot of sense. What Dennis had proposed would eliminate any emotional attachment that I would have to any of the design work that was going to be done.

This was the last chance. Crunch time. It was like two trains running wide open coming together on the same track. Something had to happen.

 

Monday Morning

I walked into Cadillac Studio on Monday morning. I wasn’t sure what I would see, but I expected the work that had been done to be there. But Dennis had the wisdom to keep the proposals hidden from both Chuck Jordan and Dave Holls so they couldn’t see what we were doing until we were ready.

I went downstairs and there were the models. Dennis and Scott Wassell were already there. Larry Erickson and Gary Smith were also there. They were all making final adjustments.

The two fiberglass models were mocked up with paper, cardboard, painted plastic, foam core, pins, tape—anything available that could help the express the new design. This was a mock-up technique that the designers had developed, and they were really good at it—creating an impression of a design, full size, that you could evaluate from 20 to 30 feet away. These were serious design proposals that could be clearly and easily evaluated and judged.

The fiberglass models with the mock-ups were really starting to look good. Len Casillo came into the room to take a quick look, and I’m sure he reported to Chuck and Dave that we were making good progress.

Larry had suggested many times that the car needed a line below the belt, but different than the Seville that we already had in the release process. I did not want the two to look alike in any way so I had resisted in doing that. But we added Larry’s line and it really worked.

For the first time we had something that we really liked ourselves. We started to interpret the mock-ups on our clay model later in the day in the Cadillac Studio. I spoke to Ray Hildebrand (Chief Modeler) about the possibility of using the clay wind tunnel model as the new release model to save time. He told me that the wind tunnel model was very accurate and could be used. That was important because it meant that we did not have to re-interpret the car again on the original release clay model that had the developing Pininfarina design.

After all of the false starts, all of a sudden the design that we were putting together from the different pieces from the other two was really starting to look good. For the first time we had something that we really liked ourselves.

The wind tunnel clay model, draped with mock-ups, was set up in the platform to be developed. Chuck and Dave both visited and really loved what we had. We were on our way. Larry made copies of images of the model while it was still downstairs and proceeded to tune them up with sweeps to make the design more easily understandable. They were placed on an easel close to the clay model and that really worked as everyone that saw them could clearly see what we were doing.

We started working on what would become the final Eldorado model 24 hours a day. A lot of people came in to help. We split the studio staffing into two shifts. Each worked 13 hours so that they overlapped. We worked about four days that way. I think both Dennis and myself put in a couple of 18 hour days.

So that mocked-up design created at the last minute became the final design. Once translated into clay, it was taken outside once, finalized for release, and sent to the plaster shop to be cast—all in 11 days. It was totally unheard of that a car design would be created, released, and sent to be cast in that short of time. I am sure that had never happened before in GM’s history.

I sent a letter to the shop thanking them for all the work that they had done in supporting us. Cadillac Studio was at that time the number one priority in the building and the shop service was exceptional. The letter also mentioned the work the shops did creating a fiberglass model of the Seville design in 14 days.

A major corporate product clinic that was coming up was re-scheduled so that our shop could finish both the Seville and Eldorado models. At the clinic the Eldorado and the Seville were at the end of a long line of new GM products that were coming out. They looked terrific. They received the highest marks of any car in the clinic with the Seville slightly surpassing the Eldorado.

A woman that was in attendance remarked: “I will never own a Cadillac, but if I could have one, I would have one of these. The Eldorado looks like it’s made from a single piece of steel—the whole thing.”

The 1992 Eldorado would be built for the next 12 years—the longest production run in GM’s history except for the C3 Corvette.

 

Epilogue

A funny story. We took the new Eldorado clay model dinoc’d silver outside to review on the patio for its only outside review. It was about 5 o’clock on a below freezing December afternoon and already getting dark. For the first time the studio saw an Eldorado design that we all really liked.

The movers brought the uncovered model out of the building. As they were setting the model on the first turntable, suddenly the clouds in the west parted and a beam of light came through and shown on the model. The clouds that had parted revealing the sun were very low, far away on the horizon. Yet this tiny beam of light came and rested on the Eldorado. We were all absolutely stunned into silence. Lenny put his fingers up, his two forefingers to make a cross, something like what you see in a Frankenstein movie, and he said, “It’s a sign from God.” At that point in time that was not hard to believe at all.